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Some People Made A Stupid Bet That They Could Borrow Money For Nothing Forever

It’s Friday desk clearing time for this blogger. “The streets aren’t being easy on Zillow, which is reportedly losing money on homes it bought to flip, but are instead proving flops. The winners of the real estate fumble include seller Abidemi Bolatiwa, who sold his Phoenix four-bedroom to the company for $531,300 in late September. Zillow listed the property for $505,900 10 days later, but it didn’t sell, so the company cut the price to $494,900. Richard Flor of the Phoenix suburb Tolleson, Arizona decided to sell to the company this summer. Zillow paid him approximately $412,000. Two weeks later, after making light repairs, Zillow listed the property for $387,000.”

“In September, several metrics were down compared to August: the average price of a resale home was down 2% to $422,000; house showings were down by 6%; pending sales down by 5%; closed listings down by 12%; and resale closed listings down by 14%. Metrics that were up in September include end-of-month housing inventory up by 32%, houses listed up by 5% and the overall average price of a home didn’t rise from its average of $430,500, according to the Triangle Area Residential Report.”

“Inventory is expected to increase this time of the year, especially since homebuilders will finish building new homes in places like southwest and west Wake County, said Stacey Anfindsen, real estate appraiser. ‘You’re going to see some (house) prices leveling,’ said Anfindsen, but he emphasized that does not mean house prices will fall back to what was considered normal.”

“Otto Cedeño, director of the Durham Regional Association of REALTORS, pointed out that housing supply increase is a silver lining of the fact that home foreclosures are up 150% in Durham County and nearly 67% in Wake County from the previous quarter as mortgage assistance programs ended.”

“After months of homes selling for record-breaking prices, new data shows Northeast Ohio’s real estate market starting to level off and even correct itself. Realtor Denise Franklin, said told News 5 she’s seen the slowdown firsthand, now seeing homes up for sale receive three or four offers, compared to similar homes receiving a dozen offers this past summer. ‘It was a terrible market, now it’s just a bad market,’ she laughed. ‘Even though it’s a seller’s market, I don’t want buyers to give up.'”

“The high desert communities of Yucca Valley, Pioneertown and Joshua Tree about 130 miles east of Los Angeles have been inundated with new homebuyers. And sometimes, locals can be unwelcoming. ‘We drive a Prius and we took off the Santa Monica license plate frame. We’ve heard, ‘Go back to L.A.,’ said Sarah Scott Alperin.”

“After a large wave of buyers came to town, home prices have started to cool in recent months, said Merl Abel, the mayor of Yucca Valley and a Realtor in the area. ‘Some of the frustration of people a few months ago was getting outbid every time they put in an offer. Now people have an opportunity. We’re seeing offers of one or two per home, unless it’s underpriced,’ he said. ‘The fever pitch has sort of leveled off a bit.'”

“Canada’s pandemic housing boom has attracted a larger-than-usual share of speculators, many of whom took advantage of falling variable mortgage rates to take out multiple loans, but the central bank’s surprise warning this week about an early interest rate lift-off could douse a rally fueled by cheap debt. Already, the housing market has started to cool as fixed rate mortgages rose 60 basis points on average this year.”

“‘Once (investors) start seeing that rising interest rates and/or falling house prices makes it unprofitable to speculate on housing as an investment, that source of demand can disappear quite rapidly,’ said Philip Cross, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Former central bank governor David Dodge dismissed the likelihood of a big correction. ‘There may be some people that made a stupid bet that they could borrow money for nothing forever,’ Dodge told Reuters. ‘I don’t have a lot of sympathy, and I don’t think there are many people like that.'”

“To this day, Lee still rues the HK$1 million (US$128,600) she invested in a new residential property in the United Kingdom in 2014. An overseas property neophyte at the time, Lee, who manages a consultancy and declined to give her full name, said she fell victim to the unprofessional tactics of an agent in Hong Kong while negotiating the purchase of the 300 sq ft home in Leeds. She said the agent claimed the GBP80,000 investment would pay for itself in just three years if it was rented out to students – a carefree proposition, they maintained, given a management agency would handle everything for her.”

“The agent, however, failed to warn her that properties’ management agencies changed often and easily, and their appointment was beyond investors’ control. The firm taking care of Lee’s property was subsequently replaced three times over the years, resulting in higher fees and more expenses when it came to making repairs. ‘Mostly the repair fees are around a few hundred pounds sterling. That’s a lot when they have something to repair every three to four months,’ Lee said.”

“As it turned out, she added, the property’s location was also not as popular among students as the agent had led her to believe, with the home sitting deserted some semesters. Peter Chan, a chartered engineer in the UK, said he witnessed a growing number of Hongkongers investing in the country’s residential real estate market, but in many cases the properties were in poor condition. ‘For example, the rug was not underlaid, making the house colder during winter. The bathroom has the risk of water penetration in the bricks. Not all furniture was included, as the promotion materials had shown. We even found termites in the walls,’ he said.”

“There has been a massive deterioration of rent values in inner-city apartment markets since March 2020. According to CoreLogic, median asking rents dropped by 14.5 per cent in Sydney and fell even further in heavily locked-down Melbourne, which experienced a fall of 18.9 per cent in the first half of this year. Worse still, because of the high developer margins and marketing costs, many investors paid too much to start with and have since found that, on completion, their properties were worth considerably less than their contract price.”

“The Hong Kong real estate firm run by the family of billionaire Joseph Lau liquidated its position in Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd. bonds at a loss, contributing to a selloff that has stoked worries about credit-market contagion in the Chinese property sector. Lau’s Chinese Estates Holdings Ltd. sold the last of its Kaisa bonds this week for about $27 million and will record an aggregate loss of $174 million on its position this year.”

“The latest sales came as several of Kaisa’s bonds tumbled to record lows, pacing a broad slump in Chinese property debt. It’s been a tough year for Lau, a poker buddy of China Evergrande Group founder Hui Ka Yan and one of his biggest financial backers. Lau’s firm has also been exiting its position in Evergrande shares, which have tumbled more than 80% in 2021.”

“A long-held belief in China is that as long as the Communist Party stays in power, housing prices will continue to rise. Ordinary Chinese, however, are now debating whether this convictionis about to be turned upside down. The debate was triggered on Saturday by a decision at the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, to introduce a property tax in select areas on a trial basis.”

“Socialist China currently charges no fixed-asset tax, even on high-net-worth individuals owning multiple mansions. Seminars explaining just what the new tax will look like are seeing an influx of new participants across China: rich folk desperate to understand the magnitude. Every seminar venue has a banner with the words ‘common prosperity,’the new political slogan Chinese President Xi Jinping uses as he attempts to rectify the disparities.”

“In the Chinese social media sphere, meanwhile, an interesting conversation is taking place. ‘The days when people could become rich through housing investment are over,’ one post says. ‘Let’s sell houses where we don’t live early before their prices go down.'”

“A Chinese man in his 50s who sold his Beijing condominium at a high price a few years ago and moved to the south of the country with the proceeds analyzes the real estate market as follows. ‘Since last year, my friends in Beijing and Shanghai have also finally begun to sell their condos,’ he said. These are second and third houses they do not live in. ‘President Xi has continued to say, ‘Housing is for living in, not for speculation,’ hasn’t he? Housing prices that have gone up too much will inevitably go down. Why does everyone not believe it?'”

“Ever-rising home prices emboldened owners to increase their consumer spending, which in turn became a driving force behind China’s high-growth economy. Private property developers, including the now embattled China Evergrande Group, made money by building clusters of massive condominium towers after purchasing land-use rights from local governments.”

“Local governments themselves made out by selling land-use rights at high prices. For property developers, wealthy buyers and municipalities, it was a win-win-win dream. People’s belief that the party would never destroy this convenient system also supported the conviction that home prices would only rise. But now, the common practices of the past look like they will no longer work.”

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This Post Has 116 Comments

  1. ‘There may be some people that made a stupid bet that they could borrow money for nothing forever,’ Dodge told Reuters. ‘I don’t have a lot of sympathy, and I don’t think there are many people like that.’

    He he. A reader sent this in:

    ‘Canadians believe home prices can’t fall, so they’re increasingly leveraging their home to buy another. … and another, and then a couple more, says veteran mortgage broker’

    https://twitter.com/BetterDwelling/status/1453879818773319680?s=20

    1. so they’re increasingly leveraging their home to buy another. … and another, and then a couple more, says veteran mortgage broker

      How are they paying the interest on all those loans? With more borrowed money?

  2. ‘The days when people could become rich through housing investment are over,’ one post says. ‘Let’s sell houses where we don’t live early before their prices go down’

    Winnahs!

    ‘it was a win-win-win dream. People’s belief that the party would never destroy this convenient system also supported the conviction that home prices would only rise. But now, the common practices of the past look like they will no longer work’

    It was never going to work. The REIC won’t tell you. There is no magic wealth machine around shacks and airboxes. Eventually all bubble pop and a$$ pounding multiply.

    Speaking of which, Yucca Valley shacks up 40% in a year according to the article. Yeah, that’s gonna end well.

  3. ‘sometimes, locals can be unwelcoming. ‘We drive a Prius and we took off the Santa Monica license plate frame. We’ve heard, ‘Go back to L.A.’

    Pretty much how the whole country feels Sarah.

    1. We despise you because you and your fellow Democrat-Bolsheviks are despicable, Sarah. You and your ilk are traitors who are trying to impose an alien ideology, Marxism, that has brought untold misery and oppression to billions on this planet.

    2. “pretty much how the whole country feels sarah”

      used to be the opposite: when I drove my beat-up toyota truck from CA to FL in the 80’s every few years to visit relatives in Sarasota/Tampa, my blue CA plates always attracted instant attention & friendly curiosity.
      as someone who does not crave attention I found it rather amusing, sometimes annoying, but kept an open attitude to the top questions of:
      1) “do you know any movie stars?”
      2) “are you a surfer?”
      3) “are you single? you’re so handsome!”

      (ok, I made up #3 . . haha!)

      replies in order
      1) “errr no, the movie stars are in L.A. about 500 miles south of Sacramento. (Sacramento? blank look ensued)
      2) “well, I’m a sidewalk surfer. (blank look ensued)
      3) see above

      ahh, the good ‘ol days

      ** also got a lot of “what’s Schwarzenegger like?”
      interesting note that east coast loved Baywatch while west coast loved Miami Vice & neon really took-off.

      1. ** ok, I KNOW the EXACT distance is 386 miles from Sacramento to LA, for all the pedantic nitpickers ready to gleefully gloat . . but when you live in the greater Sacramento area, add few miles to the total then round-up for dramatic effect!

      2. The insanity continues unabated in my unremarkable San Diego neighborhood. A ~1000 sq ft flip on a small lot two doors down from me just sold at the first open house with an asking price of 840$k. Maybe more black market cash from the East. I dunno. On a $/sq ft basis that sale is about 70% higher than what it would have sold for in the last bubble. I guess that makes me a monkey’s uncle cuz I would have thought this to be impossible.

        1. One of my neighbors packed up sold out and moved to TN. I randomly met another guy today who bought a few acres in TN and is leaving CA. Another acquaintance decided he is taking his family. and getting out but hasn’t decided on where yet. Waiting for results of job applications. The exodus continues.

  4. ‘To this day, Lee still rues the HK$1 million (US$128,600) she invested in a new residential property in the United Kingdom in 2014’

    Well Lee, 2014 was the peak for the UK. Another winnah!

  6. ‘MEGHAN Markle has been mocked for reading her book, The Bench, by Australian TV hosts who took to poke fun at the Duchess on live television. Meghan read her children’s book The Bench on a children’s YouTube story channel on Wednesday.’

    ‘She took to her mansion garden in Montecito, California to film the clip. However, Sunrise hosts Karl Stefanovic, Allison Langdon, and Alex Cullen did not seem impressed by the Duchess of Sussex as they could be heard laughing as they played the video. Karl admitted he found it was “really hard to keep a straight face” while watching.’

    https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/fabulous/7915420/meghan-markle-prince-harry-news-latest-the-bench-archie/

    Every morning when doing searches I come across dozens of articles on this useless family. So why do you fawn over these idiots every day globalist scum media?

    1. Separately, I’ve noticed that almost every ad features a mixed-race couple, and if it’s a woman walking or playing with a child, she’s white, usually blonde, and the child is biracial (black father, 100% of the time). It’s almost like an agenda is being pushed.

      2. And palm tree hair. Or are they palm tree wig wearing actors in every imbecilic commercial on TV.

        I’ve never observed Palm Tree hair in real life anywhere.

      3. I’ve noticed that almost every ad features a mixed-race couple,
        I went to church about 2.5 years ago and the black substitute pastor said the exact same thing in the sermon. Also pointed that about 25% of the time the men in the ads were gay. Yeah, he noticed the agenda being pushed 2.5 years ago.

    2. Harry and Meghan are so busy virtue signaling in the MSM that they don’t have time to do anything productive.

      1. They could redeem themselves by facing the cameras and boldly proclaiming, “Realtors are liars.”

    3. “So why do you fawn over these idiots every day globalist scum media?”

      Because this is what their totally-dumbed down media customers are interested in.

      Don’t shoot the messenger, shoot the educational system. And I hesitate to use the term “educational system”.

    4. Every morning when doing searches I come across dozens of articles on this useless family. So why do you fawn over these idiots every day globalist scum media?”

      yea annoying

      1. This really has me pissed thinking about all the people that could of been cured by these medications, that died instead under the Dr Fauci protocol.

      2. I took some while I had the Rona last month. I know I had no control group, but my case wasn’t all that bad. A fever that rarely got above 100F and my SpO2 was always in the high 90’s.

  9. Only under globalism could a creature like this obtain a professorship at an Ivy League university. As the globalists and their Democrat-Bolshevik Quislings near the demographic tipping point where whites will be a dwindling minority in America, they are feeling emboldened to drop the mask and reveal their true agenda and intent.

    ‘We got to take white people out’: Rutgers University professor, 41, calls white people ‘villains’, says ‘Critical Race Theory is just the proper teaching of American history’ and praises dwindling white birth rates in online discussion

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10143199/NJ-professor-says-got-motherf-s-talking-white-people.html

    A New Jersey professor said that ‘we got to take white people out’ during a discussion on the national backlash on Critical Race Theory.

    Brittney Cooper, 41, a professor at Rutgers University, made the shocking comment during an online discussion with The Root’s Michael Harriot titled Unpacking The Attacks On Critical Race Theory on September 21.

    1. Not to take away from your position, but Rutgers is not “Ivy League” and NJ is a $hithole.

      I’ve been there.

    2. I have a senior in high school who received a postcard from Rutgers inviting him to apply. I’ve been thinking of calling and saying he’s interested, but what are they going to do about that professor. I’m sure it will do nothing but should make for some giggles.

  10. Looks like the Evergrande CEO didn’t want to become an involuntary organ donor, and per the CCP’s “suggestion” is now tapping his personal wealth to kick the can on staving off a default – for now.

    Evergrande makes coupon payment ahead of deadline -NYT

    https://www.reuters.com/article/china-evergrande-debt/evergrande-makes-coupon-payment-ahead-of-deadline-nyt-idUSL1N2RO3GF

    Oct 28 (Reuters) – China Evergrande Group, which faces a final deadline on Friday for a payment that had been due Sept. 29, has made a payment on that bond, the New York Times reported, citing a bondholder.

    Evergrande’s liquidity crunch against more than $300 billion in liabilities sparked global concern it could trigger systemic risks.

      1. Exactly. We had what one pseudo perp walk back then (Orangezillo)? I despise China but they’re going to do this pound of flesh thing better than us.

    2. Tapping $8 billion in personal wealth to fill a $300 billion debt CR8R amounts to pouring sand down a rat hole.

      1. Pouring the billionaire down the rat hole is symbolic. Also, it may let some of the top CCP brass get their money before things fold.

      2. Point taken however, in furtherance … they are not letting him profit. Better than they would do here.

  11. I don’t normally watch Tucker Carlson, but I may have to start. Anytime the globalists’ media lapdogs and Republicrat duopoly hirelings clutch their pearls and virtue-signal their righteous indignation, it’s a good bet some truth-teller is hitting a little too close to home and has to be suppressed.

    Tucker Carlson draws bipartisan backlash for ‘false flag’ claim about Jan. 6 in new documentary

    https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Tucker-Carlson-draws-bipartisan-backlash-for-16572846.php

    WASHINGTON – Tucker Carlson, the most popular voice in conservative media, drew condemnation Thursday for the trailer of a new series he plans to debut next week promising to “tell the truth” about the Jan. 6 insurrection, in which one subject appears to float a baseless conspiracy theory that the Capitol riot was covertly orchestrated by the government.

    “False flags have happened in this country,” an unidentified female speaker is heard to say in the clip aired on Carlson’s Fox News show Wednesday night, “one of which may have been January 6.”

      1. Former President Donald Trump wrote a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal, which the newspaper published Wednesday

        In your editorial “The Election for Pennsylvania’s High Court” (Oct. 25), you state the fact that a court wrongly said mail-in ballots could be counted after Election Day. “This didn’t matter,” you add, “because Mr. Biden won the state by 80,555, but the country is lucky the election wasn’t closer. If the election had hung on a few thousand Pennsylvanians, the next President might have been picked by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

        Well actually, the election was rigged, which you, unfortunately, still haven’t figured out. Here are just a few examples of how determinative the voter fraud in Pennsylvania was:

        • 71,893 mail-in ballots were returned after Nov. 3, 2020, at 8 p.m., according to Audit the Vote PA. None of these should have been counted according to the U.S. Constitution and the state Legislature, which didn’t approve this change.

        • 10,515 mail-in votes from people who do not exist on the Pennsylvania voter rolls at all.

        • 120,000 excess voters are not yet accounted for by the Pennsylvania Department of State—far more votes than voters!

        • From 2016 to 2020, during my term as president, Republicans out-registered Democrats 21 to 1. This translated to a 659,145-vote lead at 12:38 a.m. on election night, with “Trump” up a full 15 points.

        • Hundreds of thousands of votes were unlawfully counted in secret, in defiance of a court order, while Republican poll watchers were thrown out of buildings where voting took place.

        • 39,771 people who registered to vote after the Oct. 19, 2020, deadline, still voted in the 2020 election—simply not allowed.

        Highly respected Audit the Vote PA found numerous data integrity problems the Pennsylvania Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors (SURE) system, including:

        • 305,874 voters were removed from the rolls after the election on Nov. 3rd.

        • 51,792 voters with inactive voter registrations at the end of October 2020 nevertheless voted.

        • 57,000 duplicate registrations.

        • 55,823 voters who were backfilled into the SURE system.

        • 58,261 first-time voters 70 years and older.

        • 39,911 people who were added to voter rolls while under 17 years of age.

        • 17,000 mail-in ballots sent to addresses outside of Pennsylvania.

        • Another analysis of Montgomery County, Pa., found 98% of the eligible voting population in the county was already registered to vote—not possible.

        • A canvass of Montgomery County has identified 78,000 phantom voters, with roughly 30% of respondents unaware that there are people registered and voting from their address.

        • One nursing home in Lancaster County had 690 registrations and an extremely high turnout rate of 85% in 2020, while nursing homes were closed due to Covid. One of these residents said she had not voted in the past 3 years, but had a mail-in ballot cast in her name.

        • 25,000 ballots were requested from nursing homes at the exact same time.

        • Numerous reports and sworn affidavits attested to poll watcher intimidation and harassment, many by brute force.

        • Attorney General Bill Barr ordered U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain to stand down and not investigate election irregularities.

        • Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook poured over $17 million to interfere in the Pennsylvania election, including $5.5 million on “ballot processing equipment” in Philadelphia and $552,000 for drop boxes where the voting pattern was not possible.

        And so much more! This is why Democrats and the Fake News Media do not want a full forensic audit in Pennsylvania. In reality, 80,555 ballots are nothing when there is this much corruption or voter irregularities.

        Donald J. Trump

        https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10137827/Trump-pens-critical-letter-editor-Wall-Street-Journal.html

        1. Having so many more votes counted than there are registered voters alone stands out as outrageous. We’ve know about this for many months.

        2. “Former President Donald Trump wrote a letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal, which the newspaper published Wednesday”

          I know more than a few Democrat zombies who if I could even get to read that letter and the facts contained in it would look me straight in the eye and say…

          “that’s just misinformation”

          or

          “that’s already been debunked”

  12. From their lily-white gated enclaves, globalist Quisling CEOs are escalating their efforts to marginalize and disenfranchise their white male employees. Sure would be a shame if there was blowback.

    ‘You are the problem’: AT&T tells white staff they are racist, asks them to confess their ‘white privilege’ and to promote ‘Defund the Police as part of re-education program by CEO John Stankey

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10143019/You-problem-T-recommends-articles-staff-stating-white-people-racist.html

    White employees of AT&T have been told to read an article saying that they are racist, are told to confess to their ‘white privilege’ and acknowledge ‘systemic racism,’ and must engage with set texts or else they will be penalized in their performance reviews.

    John Stankey, who took over as CEO of AT&T in July 2020, has encouraged his staff to make use of an anti-racism education program entitled Listen Understand Act.

      1. if enough deplorables resigned

        This deplorable just resigned, but not from AT&T.

        Looking forward to getting some of that “free money” that’s getting haded out!

          1. Nothing scandalous — retirement…or perhaps just a long sabbatical. Planned, on my terms, and not a minute too soon 🙂

  13. More Kabuki theater from the Establishment GOP. Those “furious Republicans” up in arms about Brandon’s latest act of lunacy are bought & paid for by the same globalist oligarchs and FIRE sector lobbyists who own the Democrats. Every single one of these globalist stooges needs to be voted out of office and replaced with representatives who will actually represent the wishes and aspirations of their constituents, instead of cravenly scurrying to carry out the orders of their globalist pimps.

    ‘We’re paying burglars who broke into our home’: Furious Republicans slam Biden for plan to pay $450,000 per person – up to $1M a family – to relatives separated at border under Trump’s zero-tolerance policy

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10143519/Furious-Republicans-slam-Biden-plan-pay-450-000-person-families-separated-border.html

    Top Republicans are furious at President Biden’s proposal to consider paying a massive $450,000 per person to families who were separated at the southern border having crossed into the United States illegally.

    The lump sums have been put forward as a way for the U.S. Justice Department to settle lawsuits with migrants who say the policy caused them lasting psychological damage.

  14. . Zillow paid him approximately $412,000. Two weeks later, after making light repairs, Zillow listed the property for $387,000.”
    How the h$ll stupid must Zillow be? Did they close on a house expecting to list it for less? It seems like that is the best answer. Nothing could have changed that much in 2 weeks!
    Maybe the Person responsible for Buying at Zillow and the person responsible for selling at Zillow are in different departments and have different views on the market and/or are working with different appraisers?
    Whatever the reason, it is dumb as h$ll.

      1. Your home equity wealth creation scheme doesn’t work very well if they sell the places for which they just overpaid at a 10 percent discount a month later.

        Maybe that explains why they are tiptoeing away from the flipping business? Of course, if prices are already CR8Ring, then it’s too late, baby, it’s too late, though they really did try to make it.

        1. “Your home equity wealth creation scheme doesn’t work very well if they sell the places for which they just overpaid at a 10 percent discount a month later.”

          True dat. But there are two things to think about here:

          Thing Number 1: Nobody knew what the market would look like a month later.

          Thing Number 2: There is the stock price to consider. If it could be shown that the book value of Zillow had been steadily rising then stupid investors could be sucked into buying from the manipulating insiders who are selling.

          1. “…stupid investors could be sucked into buying from the manipulating insiders who are selling.”

            Always happens just B4 CR8R.

      2. Didn’t realize banker was that dumb! Zillow has been a joke for ever, it’s controllers don’t care about making money. A good quarter is making a few million off a billion in revenue. Does that make any sense? It does if it’s a scam.

        The controllers probably are putting the pin to the bubble. It’s all psychological, and we live in a giant psyop. No doubt they are deeply connected politically and even get their marching orders from the elites.

    3. Zillow paid him approximately $412,000.’

      I read Zillow takes 6% plus charges for repairs they don’t do and a convenience fee 2% so they maybe breaking even ? IDK that’s what I read could be wrong anyone know ?

  15. “Canada’s pandemic housing boom has attracted a larger-than-usual share of speculators, many of whom took advantage of falling variable mortgage rates to take out multiple loans, but the central bank’s surprise warning this week about an early interest rate lift-off could douse a rally fueled by cheap debt. Already, the housing market has started to cool as fixed rate mortgages rose 60 basis points on average this year.”

    “‘Once (investors) start seeing that rising interest rates and/or falling house prices makes it unprofitable to speculate on housing as an investment, that source of demand can disappear quite rapidly,’ said Philip Cross, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Former central bank governor David Dodge dismissed the likelihood of a big correction. ‘There may be some people that made a stupid bet that they could borrow money for nothing forever,’ Dodge told Reuters. ‘I don’t have a lot of sympathy, and I don’t think there are many people like that.’”

    – A nation of gamblers as enabled by cheap credit for their central bank and as encouraged by their gov’t. History says this never works out well. It’s a global financial pandemic; it’s also a bubble, and bubbles always burst.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP2RUD_cL0
    Dire Straits – Money For Nothing
    102,524,813 views
    Feb 23, 2010

    Dire Straits Lyrics
    “Money For Nothing”
    1895

    “Now look at them yo-yos, that’s the way you do it
    You play the guitar on the MTV
    That ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it
    Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free”

    “No warning can save people determined to grow suddenly rich” – Lord Overstone

    “All crisis have involved debt that, in one fashion or another, has become dangerously out of scale in relation to the underlying means of payment.” – John Kenneth Galbraith, A Short History of Financial Euphoria

  17. Going bankrupt the Ernest Hemingway route ..”Slowly, then all of a sudden” , is going to come easy if one has a number of houses….

  18. “The winners of the real estate fumble include seller Abidemi Bolatiwa, who sold his Phoenix four-bedroom to the company for $531,300 in late September. Zillow listed the property for $505,900 10 days later, but it didn’t sell, so the company cut the price to $494,900.”

    We’ve suspected for years that the Zestimates were upwardly biased. Now the evidence is staring us in the face, and biting them in the arse.

  19. The Financial Times
    Opinion Chinese economy
    China needs to learn lessons from Japan’s 1990s collapse
    The longer Beijing takes to address its housing market bubble and accept a lower level of growth the worse the pain will be
    Robin Harding
    A woman rides a scooter past the construction site of an Evergrande housing complex in Zhumadian, central Chinas Henan province
    The recent woes of property developer Evergrande show how boom could turn to bust
    © Jade Gao/AFP/Getty
    Robin Harding yesterday

    When Chinese policymakers think about the economy, one of their main goals is to avoid what happened to Japan in 1990, when the excesses from years of rapid growth culminated in the collapse of a spectacular asset price bubble. Japanese officials who were active in that era tell tales of visits from their Chinese counterparts throughout the 2000s and 2010s, eager to learn the secrets of what went wrong and how they might avoid a similar fate.

    China itself has enjoyed an enormous housing boom in recent decades: prices per square meter have quadrupled or more, even as the construction of hundreds of millions of dwellings turned it into a nation of homeowners. The recent woes of property developer Evergrande, which is struggling to pay its debts, show how that boom could turn to bust.
    …

  21. I know a few of you think I’m a troll or not the original from years ago who posted here. I am.

    Figured I’d give another update: we finally sold/closed our multifamily. Took about 8 weeks longer to close the sale because the buyer had issues with his bank and needed to find another lender. Bottom line, it closed and we are currently squatting, neither renting nor owning, until the buyer moves in to our apartment in a few weeks. We made good money on the sale, a full price offer that I did FSBO, but it took 17 years to get there and for at least a quarter of that, we were upside down. Of course 17 years of rental income on 3 of the 4 units helped our bottom line considerably.

    We’ll be moving into my parents house next town over. They are retired and need some help due to my mom developing dementia. House is paid for and been in the family for years so we’ll wait out the coming real estate storm there. We’ll be looking to move everyone south in a few years, once my youngest graduates HS and heads off to college.

    I know crypto is unpopular here. Again, very surprised, given BTC was born of the 2008 financial collapse and bank bailouts. Some of you should research the quote on the first block… BTC was always about sound money outside the direct control and printing presses of governments. Think what you want, but the market has spoken… litterally the best performing asset sonce it’s inception. More importantly, it’s bull and bear markets are cyclical and driven by deflationary events like halvings, every 4 years. You may not like it, but as the saying goes “you have to dance when the music is playing”. BTC is going to 100k+ this bull cycle (check out Plan B and Stock to flow). Then a few years of bear, then who knows.

    I say this as someone who wants to give back to the HBB. I learned a ton here and it shaped my world view of housing and economics. We’re in a massive everything bubble, but there is time to still make money before the next peak/down cycle. Take the plunge, go down the crypto rabbit hole. Buy some Bitcoin. You’ll be glad you did. Hell, sell it once it peaks, buy some gold or silver with the profits, then wait out the bear for the next bull cycle in 2024. Full disclosure, I moved the majority of the six figure sale of our house into Bitcoin and Ethereum with the plan to sell in Dec or BTC $130k, which ever comes first. Good luck to all.

    2. “I moved the majority of the six figure sale of our house into Bitcoin and Ethereum with the plan to sell in Dec or BTC $130k, which ever comes first.”

      Sounds like you are trying hard to get your ass handed to you.

      1. Nope. Speculation requires risk, and without risk, there is no reward. I’ve been in crypto a while and Bitcoin is a game changer, at least until TPTB try and change the rules of the game… which is the real macro risk with crypto. 21 million BTC max. Approx. 3+ million lost forever due to lost keys and such. 18,856,793 currently in circulation. 4 year halving cycle where block rewards are cut in half. Last BTC won’t be mined until 2140. Increased adoption with decreasing new supply means deflationary pressure on price (or scarcity pressure on pricing if you well)

        Price on a macro level follows a cycle which follows halving. 2020, 2016, 2012. Look at the price action 12-18 months after a halving. Also while the pricing cycle may be flattening, following a typical adoption curve, it is still plenty of upside to each cycle peak. As to the downside, BTC has never broken below it’s 200 weekly moving average…

        The trader in me sees this as the closest thing to a sure thing. The libertarian in me sees it as a middle finger to .gov and their destruction of the dollar (and the middle class).

        2. a sure thing

          It’s stupid really, and total mania despite the elaborate rationale and suredness sales pitch.

        3. “Speculation requires risk, and without risk, there is no reward.”

          There’s smart risk and dumb risk.

          I’ll leave it up to you to guess what kind I think you are taking.

        5. “The trader in me sees this as the closest thing to a sure thing.”

          My ursine instincts me this is the closest thing to a sure thing to collapse when interest rates are allowed to rise back to normal.

    3. Happy for you though crypto is not my bag. But I also understand it’s worked for many. But since I missed the wedding, I won’t be coming to the funeral.

      1. It’s unfortunate that the Fed and their banking cabal masters along with our Legislators and President have destroyed the economy and the dollar. We’re all speculators now. Inflation in must haves like food and energy are crushing the lower 90%. The only reason housing has held up as well as it has post-covid is due to mortgage forbearance and eviction moratoriums. Once the government gets out of the way, with inflation eating at people’s ability to spend and the inevitable interest rate increases, housing will tank again.

        I’m just hoping to place my family in the eye of the storm, increasing net worth with the typical crack-up boom from inflation that markets see while waiting out the housing correction. I couldn’t take advantage of 2009/10 pricing, but hopefully this time around I will be on the right side of the housing market.

        1. “It’s unfortunate that the Fed and their banking cabal masters along with our Legislators and President have destroyed the economy and the dollar.”

          They certainly have handed out Powell bux like candy to speculators who want to throw it away on high risk gambles, like cryptocurrency investment.

    4. after your folksy opening statement, the non-stop bragging & phony self-debasement only cheapened the eventual sales pitch by putting the jury to sleep out of sheer f***in boredom !!

  22. ‘Housing is for living in, not for speculation… Housing prices that have gone up too much will inevitably go down. Why does everyone not believe it?’

    As a Southern Californian…

  24. Apple is claiming that sales were down $6B last quarter due to supply chain issues. Funny thing is, I went to the online Apple store, and everything seemed to be in stock. Could it possibly be because people are finally choosing to not buy a $1000+ phone?

    1. “…not buy a $1000+ phone?…”

      Personally, I bought a used ALCATEL “One Touch” flip phone on Ebay for $8. Works great. Had it for years. It is so uncool and out dated that no one would bother stealing it. Makes great phone calls, text, etc. Much smaller form factor than an IPhone. Would I spend an extra $992 for a lot of extra features that I may never use? NO!

      Got to hand it to Apple through. They are marketing geniuses to convince the general public that you just aren’t part of the cool, savvy, hipster in-crowd and should be publicly shamed unless you buy all the latest junk.

      Come to think about it, that’ the same guilt trip the REIConplex promotes. Think “Suzanne said we can do this… “

        1. My ambition is to eventually go back to just a land line

          AT&T isn’t putting in new landlines in my area, unfortunately

          1. ATT doesn’t perform aerial copper construction. Haven’t since 1984. That’s the ILEC’s job.

  25. “The streets aren’t being easy on Zillow, which is reportedly losing money on homes it bought to flip, but are instead proving flops.”

    In normal times this would be an opportunity for epic schadenfreude. But Zillow owns too many homes is too big to fail now. They’ll get bailed out. Those houses will never go to a bankruptcy sale…..unless it is to some heighter level corporate predator like Blackstone who gets a sweetheart deal for the whole package.

        1. They’ve been taking a$$ poundings since they started. Now they stopped buying. Selling off furiously. Easiest 5 bucks evah!

      2. You may be right on that one. But in that case the likely scenario would be they get phagocytosed by some cannibal amoeba higher up the food chain. I’m still skeptical those houses would ever turn into bargains for the individual.

        1. At this point all it would take would be a gentle push off the cliff.

          One scenario is Evergrande and Zillow file for BK (or just post negative news) during the same week.

          As the HBB and its readers have pointed out now for many years, the entire worldwide REIConplex is being held together with nothing more financial scotch tape and bailing wire.

    1. BTW, this article is about ten years Old but I just now ran across it. Here are a couple of snips:

      “He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that ‘before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.’

      (snip)

      “’The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,’ Lovelock said.

      “’The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,’ he said.

      “”The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,’ he added.

      “He pointed to Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and Tim Flannery’s ‘The Weather Makers’ as other examples of ‘alarmist’ forecasts of the future.”

  29. Torch-Wielding White Supremacists To Frame GOP Candidate

    by Kelen McBreen
    October 29th 2021, 4:52 pm

    Did Democrats just get caught in a lowbrow political stunt?
    Lincoln Project takes responsibility for the photo op.

    A group of young people who were photographed standing outside Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s tour bus holding tiki torches on Friday are allegedly Democrat operatives who tried to stage a negative photo op.

    Despite standing in the rain, the group held tiki torches and wore long sleeve, white button-up shirts with khaki pants in order to look like some people who took place in the 2018 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.

    A member of Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe even tweeted the image out, writing, “The Unite the Right rally was one of the darkest days in the Commonwealth’s history. this is who Glenn Youngkin’s supporters are.”

    Suspicious internet users did some digging into the alleged Youngkin supporters and found a few of them closely resemble members of the organization Virginia Democrats.

    One man looks like VA Dems financial director Camden Layton, who made both his Twitter and Instagram accounts private soon after being accused of participating in the stunt.

    The only female in the group of five who stood outside the tour bus may have been VA Democrats member Colleen Wachenfeld, who also altered her Twitter account after users accused her of engaging in the setup.

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/virginia-democrats-accused-of-posing-as-tiki-torch-wielding-white-supremacists-to-frame-gop-candidate/

  30. Build Back Better Bill Includes $2.25 BILLION for CLIMATE POLICE
    Infowars.com

    October 29th 2021, 2:17 pm

    A provision in Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act allocates over $2 billion to the creation of a “Civilian Climate Corps,” or Climate Police, warns Congressman Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).

    According to text appearing in the most recent version of H.R. 5376, an agriculture provision dedicated to national forest system restoration discusses how $2.2 billion would be appropriated for “to support the development of a Civilian Climate Corps.”

    https://www.infowars.com/posts/build-back-better-bill-includes-2-25-billion-for-climate-police/

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